Players to Watch: Texas Defense

The West Virginia Mountaineers will have a stiff challenge this Saturday against No. 22 Texas. The Longhorn defense is coming off an impressive performance against No. 6 Oklahoma State as they forced five turnovers in their upset win. Let's take a look at each of the three players that will make the biggest impact on Saturday.

DT Keondre Coburn

Over the years, Texas has had some solid interior defensive linemen and Coburn has the looks of being the next great one. He's been a little up and down in production which is something head coach Tom Herman probably wants to get ironed out. With his size (6'2", 348 lbs) he's not able to play at full speed for a high volume of plays but when he can, he's a force to be reckoned with. He can absorb double teams and still fight through to make a tackle. What he does best is clog gaps up front in the running game, which allows the guys in the second level of the defense to step up and finish things off.

LB Joseph Ossai

Ossai is a first round talent and could be considered as one of the best pure pass rushers in the country. He has 4.5 sacks this season along with 12 tackles for loss in just six games which is on pace to shatter his 2019 totals of five sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss. He presents a lot of matchup issues for West Virginia up front who have a redshirt freshman starting at left tackle and a true freshman at left guard. They'll need to limit the amount of pressure he gets on Doege for West Virginia to move the ball efficiently.

FS Caden Sterns

As West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said, it seems like Sterns has been at Texas forever. He's a really talented safety that has a future in the NFL. He tends to eliminate the explosive play and keeps everything in front of him. If Doege wants to take shots down the field, he has to be aware of where Sterns is at and stay away from that area of the field as much as he can.

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